My wife has seen me in my Model 3 for nearly 2 years now, and she loves her butt warmer (seat heater) when she's in the car. But she's had it in her head for a few years now that she wants a Volvo XC90, XC60, or XC40, despite never having even test driven one.
She's not a technical type, and although she could learn the nuances of a Tesla, she's weird about stuff like that. If she doesn't want to do it all on her own, it'll be tough to change her mind.
I already have the charging setup in the driveway. She wouldn't be in a VOLVO. And no more paying for gasoline and the taxes on it, at least until PA adds a registration fee.
Any ideas to steer her in the right direction? My guess is that she would want a base 3 SR+ in blue paint color.
If she has zero plans to learn the in's and out's of a Tesla, get her a long range Model 3. She could very much end up with half the range in the winter time (if she turns the heat up to 74F because she like "hot air" on her feet or something and uses seat heaters, etc). The SR+ could be down to like 120 miles range (at like 50 mph) and more like ~95 miles if you observe the 10% to 90% battery window to improve longevity. Now will it always be like that, no, this is very extreme, but for someone that isn't paying attention at all, makes a few short trips and lets the heat blast, has winter tires on, etc, it totally could get down to this.
The Volvo won't have the same issue. It might take a little longer to warm up, but she'll just remote start it while she's at work or in the store or something and let it run 5 to 10 minutes in the parking lot. Drive 10 miles or something and get out and the car will cool back down. Repeat the above. Use it burns gas, but she'll still have at minimum a 200 mile range on a gas tank that large AND it's 5 minutes to fill it back up. Make it a bullet proof "can't screw it up" thing and go long range.
Other than that, I doubt she would have too much issues with learning to drive it. Even if she never used AP or anything she probably would be fine in it and the sat nav actually is probably easier than other cars. Road trips might be a pain for her (again you need to think about mountains, standing water on the freeway or heavy rain/wind. The car does a decent job estimating range, but can be 20%+ off with estimates based on weather....) but how often does she go for a 100+ mile trip without you?
One final option might be getting a XC90 or XC60 Plug In hybrid. They're not ideal, but for someone that will pay zero mind to plugging in and making sure they have enough charge to go somewhere, etc, it might be a good in-between. Should be good for about 17 miles battery only on the XC60 and "more than 17" on the XC90. Maybe that gets her to work every day? It's a way to cut down on the gas... and some people you just can't force into the electric mindset. This is one of the big reasons I think we need 400+ mile ranges and at least 200+ miles in the winter with the heat set high (think 74F or something). It's doable right now and can be absolutely great, but you have people that will want the windows down a little on a winter day to get brisk air in but hot air blasting at their feet and stuff like that. EV's right now still get absolutely killed with stuff like that.